Forged in Crisis - The power of courageous leadership in turbulent times

Forged in crisis by Nancy Koehn is a bibliographic sketch of five unforgettable leaders who lived, worked, struggled and triumphed in different circumstances towards different ends. Five remarkable leaders are polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, President Abraham Lincoln, legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Nazi resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer and environmental crusader Rachel Carson.

All five are great example of gritty leaders whose extraordinary passion and perseverance not only changed human history but raised the bar for their followers and allow them to better and harder things than they could have accomplished on their own. But among these five my favourite was polar explorer Ernest Shackleton who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. This is a story of an explorer from Great Britain and his twenty seven men trapped on an iceberg off the coast of Antarctica. Their ship, the Endurance, has gone down through the ice and he and his crew are trapped thousand miles away from civilization with three lifeboats, canned food and no means of communicating with the outside world. This story will teach us importance of right balance in team, how and why to keep moral of team high when survival look so bleak and importance of good leader, who can thrive in ambiguity and respond quickly. A must read!

A nicely written book by Nancy Koehn and by far the best book written on leadership without any management jargon and gyaan.